In the absence of any possible other explanation, Mr Darcy imagined himself delirious on his death bed. He must have hit his head on the way back to Rosings or caught a terrible illness in the cold. It was only natural then that his imagination would conjure up Elizabeth at Pemberley.

Except that behind her he could see two strangers, a man and a woman, talking to his gardener and his imagination was definitely not strong enough to make up strangers too.

In his bewilderment, Mr Darcy's feet moved forward and he found himself right in front of her. They greeted each other with some awkwardness.

"I was told you were in London, sir." She didn't dare to lift her eyes to his face, seemingly out of embarrassment.

He could only reply with: "No, I'm not." At this inane answer Elizabeth did raise her eyes, so he scrambled to find something cleverer to say. "How come you are at— in Derbyshire?"

"I am touring the country with my aunt and uncle for the summer." That explained the two strangers. "If we had known you were here—"

"And all your family is well at home?"

"Yes, they were all in good health when we left Longbourn."

"And how long have you been in this part of the country?"

"But two weeks, sir."

He was about to ask again about her family, when he realized that Elizabeth's gaze lingered somewhere around his chest not out of embarrassment, but because he was still in his shirtsleeves!

This discovery, combined with apparently traveling through space and time and making such a display of himself in front of not only Elizabeth but also her family and his own gardener (who looked quite flabbergasted) was too much for Mr Darcy.

He quickly excused himself and walked as fast as he could to Pemberley House.

Mrs Reynolds didn't even have the time to exclaim "Goodness, sir, we weren't expecting you", before he immediately grabbed her by the arms.

"Reynolds, is this a dream? Is Miss Bennet really walking down my garden in early August?"

"Why would you be dreaming, sir? I accompanied the group on a tour of the house, yes, and now they are in the park. The young lady did say she knew you. Should I have not let them in?"

"No, you did good. You did absolutely good." But was this reality or a strange hallucination? How could he make sure?

"What has happened, sir? Where is Miss Darcy?"

"Georgiana was with me?" Then he remembered what Elizabeth had said. "In London?"

"You were on your way from London with Miss Darcy and a party of guests. We were expecting your arrival tomorrow."

The pieces were slowly falling into place. They way he saw this peculiar situation, there were two possibilities. Either he was dreaming or he had really walked through time and space. A part of him wanted to believe that some benevolent god had given him the opportunity to make amends, the other thought he was crazy.

But did it really matter? He was at Pemberley, and so was Elizabeth. An hadn't he promised to show her that he was a man she could esteem, had they ever met again?

"Mr Darcy, sir, you are scaring me. Did you fall off your horse? Where is Miss Georgiana?"

The woman who had almost raised him like a mother seemed extremely worried, but Mr Darcy simply grinned and planted a big kiss on her cheek.

"There is nothing wrong, Reynolds. I had some business to take care of so I came back a day in advance. Forgive me, I must be tired from my walk. Now, I need to get changed. Tell Carson to ready the red coat— no, the green one!"

"Mr Carson is not here! He was with you in London."

"Then I'll do it myself. And stop Elizabeth from leaving until I can come back!"

Mr Darcy spent a lovely afternoon in the company of Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners. Elizabeth, who looked quite stiff and embarrassed at first, and not at all happy to see him, slowly allowed some of her usual vivacity to resurface. He invited them inside for some refreshment at the end of their tour of the park, but they declined on the account of tiredness.

Darcy was left looking at the carriage moving away, hoping that what he had done that day would be enough. Elizabeth looked back at him from her seat. There was hope.

He collapsed on his bed as soon as he entered the room.

When he woke up, it was to his own face staring back at him from the side of the bed. He was also brandishing a pistol. "Who are you? How did you do this?"

"We both know that gun is nothing more than an amass of rust, put it down." Mr Darcy yawned and raised to sit. It was barely dawn. "I'm you from right after you delivered the letter at Rosings."

Fresh Out of London made a face but then tried to hide it. "I am unaware of what you mean."

Mr Darcy scoffed: "Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension—"

"Stop! How do you know this?"

"I wrote it less than a day ago, I would be a dimwit not to remember."

Summer Edition leaned in closer and scrutinized his double's face.

"You really are me."

"Yes. Now, I don't know how this is going to go. What I do know is that Elizabeth is here—"

"Elizabeth is here?"

Mr Darcy somehow felt irritated hearing her name on another man's lips, even if that other man was technically stil him. "She is touring Derbyshire with her aunt and uncle. They were visiting Pemberley when I came out of the woods."

"I— I can't believe this." The other sat on the bed and hid his face in his hands. "I thought it had been a dream. After I gave her the letter—But I could only remember bits and pieces of meeting her in the park."

"So you are my future." This was all the confirmation "Good. Then you will go to Lamb and Crown tomorrow morning and introduce Georgiana to her, like we arranged today." He took a deep, steady breath, trying to stop his feelings from overwhelming him (it had been a long day, after all) and then got out of the bed.

"Where are you going?"

"I assume you'll tell me. How did your dream end?"

"I just… walked back, I guess."

"To the woods it is, then."

The other insisted on accompanying him to the edge of the park. Mr Darcy was ready to leave when the future called him back.

"If not for this accident, I would have arrived one day too late. I would have missed her. Thank you."

"No, I didn't do anything. I don't even know how I ended up here, you'd be better off thanking these trees. But if you want to show gratefulness, don't waste this chance. I don't want to feel like that night at Hunsford ever again."

"Yours is a fresh wound. I've spent months cradling mine. I swear to you that if there is a chance for Elizabeth to love me, I will make it happen."

With that glint in his eyes, Mr Darcy could not recognize himself anymore. The Darcy in front of him was not simply his double, but a better man than he had ever been, with a determination and self-awareness that would surely bring the both of them a better future. What a difference a few months could make. Elizabeth would not know what hit her.

He shook his hand. "You better keep this promise. Because otherwise, I'll come back and marry her."

With this last threat, Mr Darcy entered the woods for the last time.

Author's notes:

So this is my explanation for why Darcy came back one day early.

I had the idea for this almost two years ago while reading Austen's Minimalism by Andrew Elfenbein in The Cambridge Companion to Pride and Prejudice (excellent paper in general). At one point it talks about the differences between scenes that happen indoors (first proposal) vs outdoors (giving the letter) and the quote I saved goes: "[with that quote] Austen means that Darcy walks away from Elizabeth into a wooded area, but his retreat into nature seems more definitive: it is as if the natural world has reabsorbed him." The essay then moves on to talk about how they also get engaged during a walk, but I was fixated on the idea that if Darcy disappears into natura at Rosings, the next time we see him he is being spit out of the woods at Pemberley, where he shouldn't be. So space-time traveling shenanigans it was :)

Anyway, you have no idea how difficult it was to find a title for this fic! "Lost in the Woods", "Into the Woods" and "Out of the Woods" were already taken. I ended up using a quote from chapter 43. Quite fitting, if overly long.